“I mean, there’s nobody left in Detroit other than the police and the unemployed. I’d cut Michigan off the schedule altogether. Michigan – I’m talking about the state – is never coming back to what it used to be, so why go there and throw good money after bad money?”

I’ll begin by saying that MIS is actually not in Detroit, but near Jackson and the south central Michigan town of Brooklyn.

I can’t deny Michigan’s high unemployment rate: 14.6 percent in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Yet, unemployed Michiganians or not, I’m told MIS still sells out its summer weekend races. Maybe the police are buying up all the tickets, Mr. Sabates?

Mr. Sabates, you also conveniently forget that NASCAR races American cars and trucks. Where are those American vehicles designed and built? Where are those car companies headquartered? Oh, in Auburn Hills, Dearborn and Detroit, MICHIGAN.

Instead of seeing it as “throwing good money after bad” in a state which you think isn’t coming back, why not see racing in Michigan as an investment to help the state come back? MIS’s track president invited you to come and see the place and the races for yourself. Now that’s something we’d like to see.